I wish I knew what he thought about that. I cast my eyes over his handsome profile as he lies on his back. His eyes are closed, and his dark blond eyelashes are resting against his cheeks.
“Daddy wants me to get married.”
Cassian’s eyes snap open. When he speaks, his voice is quiet and deadly. “Does he?”
“Yes. To one of the young men in the Royal Guard or from some First Family. If I don’t like any of those, then he’ll look farther afield for a husband for me, to other European families.”
He sits up and reaches for his clothes. “I can picture it now. Fine Lady Aubrey becoming Baroness this or Duchess that. Will you still come and ride here, or will I be useless to you once you have a husband to satisfy you?”
I sit up and hug my T-shirt to my chest. I was hoping he’d be jealous enough to declare that no one was going to marry me if he couldn’t. “Stop it. I hate hearing you talk like that. I don’t want to get married to some stranger.”
He pauses in the midst of his angry dressing and looks over his shoulder at me. “Then run away with me. You have no love for Paravel. Let’s take our horses and just go.”
I slide my hand up his warm, muscled shoulder. “But this is your home. You love it here.”
He glances around at the stalls. “For how much longer? I should probably just pack it in now.”
“You don’t mean that. You love these stables. You wouldn’t work so hard if you didn’t love them.”
Cassian shakes his head and pulls on his T-shirt. “Yeah, well. Love doesn’t magically solve everything.”
Panic seizes me, because if I can’t ride at Cassian’s stables, how will we ever find private moments with each other? My whole life is riding Cinnamon here and being in Cassian’s arms, and it will tear my heart in two to lose it.
And Cassian? Does he care about me marrying someone else? He’s never said so. I stupidly believed there was something special between us, even though he never said it. The spaces between his words were just that. Spaces. Nothing.
Empty.
Cassian rumples his hair back and forth, watching my unhappy face, but seeming not to know what to do about it. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”
I was thinking about him, but I was also thinking about us, something that, apparently, hasn’t occurred to him. I stand up and pull my clothes on as fast as I can. “Fine, I won’t. Sometimes I wonder why I bother.”
He calls after me as I hurry out of the stables, but I keep going without looking back. I’ve wasted enough feelings and heartache on Cassian Bellerose.The day of the Paravel International Dressage Competition has a festival quality to it. The front page of every paper is devoted to the competitors and the countries they’ll be representing. Only a handful have sent athletes to Paravel, and with the tumult of a revolution just behind us, I don’t blame them. Over a hasty breakfast eaten in the kitchen at Levanter House, I scan the names and see I’ll be up against riders from France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Slovenia, Greece and Germany.
I pull up to the palace parade grounds in a horse box emblazoned with Bellerose Livery Stables and Riding School. I’m still mad at Cassian, but a promise is a promise. I was happy to see the stables mentioned in two of the newspapers this morning, although one of them couldn’t help themselves and mentioned Varga and Onyx as well.
I try to block everything out before a competition and focus on making sure everything about my riding costume and Cinnamon’s tack is spotless and neat. Hundreds of Paravanian and international visitors are filling the bleachers. This must be equally strange for both groups of people, as neither has laid eyes on the other for a long time.
There is press moving about the competitors’ area conducting interviews. I recognize the French competitor from local competitions while I was in exile. She’s the French President’s daughter, Daphne Bisset. There are a crowd of photographers clustered around the glamorous young woman, and I overhear some of their questions about international relations between the two countries and whether her mother, the President, will be making an official State visit. She answers these loaded questions with the ease of someone used to being in the spotlight. My spine prickles with cold sweat, just imagining being in her place.
After a moment, Daphne spots me over the journalists’ heads and leaves them and her horse behind to come and talk to me. She kisses me on both cheeks and gives me a huge smile.
“Aubrey, bonjour, ça va?”
“Ça va. It’s wonderful to see you here.”
“Et tu. You’re allowed to compete internationally at last. I’m so happy for you.”